Conducting a Risk Assessment is an integral part of our Health & Safety procedures and its primary purpose is to prevent people from getting injured due to our filming activities. It has nothing to do with preventing damage to equipment.
Simply put, the first step is to state exactly what we are filming, including the type of location, the people involved and the equipment being used. This should suggest to the un-informed reader what type of hazards are likely to be encountered.
Step 2 is to identify each hazard precisely, identify who could come to harm, and what behavioral control measure we can deploy to minimise the likelihood of any problem arising.
The RISK FACTOR is arrived at by multiplying two numbers together, one number, between 1 and 5, representing the LIKELIHOOD of a problem occurring, and the other, also between 1 and 5, representing the CONSEQUENCES of that event happening.
So LIKELIHOOD can be categorized as 1 - Very Unlikely, 2 - Unlikely, 3 - Possible, 4 - Likely and 5 - Very Likely.
Similarly, CONSEQUENCE can be categorized as 1 - Negligible, 2 - Slight, 3 - Moderate, 4 - Severe, 5 - Very Severe.
Multiplying the two numbers gives a product ranging from 1 to 25.
RISK FACTOR = LIKELIHOOD x CONSEQUENCE.
It is our practise to consider numbers 1 - 6 to represent a Low Risk, 8 - 10 a Medium Risk, and 12 - 25 a High Risk. A score of more than 6 means that the activity is too risky to carry out without further control measures in place and it is the application of behavioural control measures that enable us to keep the LIKELIHOOD figure as low as possible. It's not usually possible to reduce the CONSEQUENCE figure - You can't be slightly dead......Dead is dead, period!
By preventing/reducing the Likelihood however, the risk factor can be brought down to a low enough level for us to continue in safety. So, by not creating trip hazards or access problems in the first place, the chance of a problem occurring is reduced to a 1 - Very Unlikely. If the Consequence would be Very Severe, our Risk Factor would only be 1 x 5 and thus, perfectly safe to continue.
Step 3 would only need to be carried out for any Risk Assessment generating a Medium or high Risk (8 - 25). This step would involve deploying additional control measures which would include the use of specialised equipment (protective clothing/barriers/fire extinguishers etc), or personnel such as fire officers, stunt artists, armourers, etc..
..........and there you have it. Risk Assessment made shhhhimple!
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